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Published: January 5th 2008
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An amazing Display
The whole city was alight. During the week between Christmas and New Year, we decided to have some relaxation time, although we still managed to get a few things done.
On Boxing Day, we headed into town and hit the cinema to see the film P.S. I Love You, a chick flick title if ever I had heard one. It was more of a film for Emma, having been a fan of the book on which it was based. It wasn't really my type of film but I thought Gerard Butler's attempt at an Irish accent was pretty funny. Emma really enjoyed it. Afterwards, we decided to treat ourselves and have dinner at Tony Romas which was tasty.
One of the days, Emma also went into town to meet Ann Marie, a teacher at the school she had taught at in Scotland who was over in Sydney for a wedding. I stayed in the flat for mainly hangover reasons as I was struggling to even breathe and made an age-old vow never to exclusively drink rose wine for the whole evening. Emma enjoyed catching up and I was able to later meet up with Emma again in town once I'd recovered and we went
to see the Golden Compass.
We also did the open top bus City Sightseeing trip for a day. Fortunately, the weather was really hot when we did it, although we both burnt our heads sitting in the sun the for most of the day. The city loop took and hour and half and got to see parts of the city we hadn't been to and could hop on and off wherever. The commentary was pretty insightful to begin with but did get a bit monotonous as time drew on. We jumped off at the Central stop, had a tasty kebab, and used our ticket for the Bondi loop which was part of the cost.
The bus itself was a lot more crowded as everybody wanted to go to the beach on this scorching day. When we got to Bondi, we didn't really fancy getting off though, but had to as the bus wasn't departing for another half hour. We had a browse about Bondi for a while and soon came back but our bus had gone! We ended up stranded for another hour and a half waiting for the next one and eventually completed the Bondi loop and
Getting closer
You could feel the excitement in the air! back to the city. It was quite late on by the time we got back so we headed home, happy to have actually seen a lot more of the city.
We met Mary in the city one day as well, as her and Brid had arrived in Sydney shortly before Christmas from New Zealand. We ended up in a cafe where I was served a hotdog of a dubious nature (it was bright pink and of a strange complexion) and crossed the Sydney Harbour bridge on foot which was a pleasant experience. It was good to catch up too and again the sun was pretty hot. Although I suppose the sun itself is always hot.
We did other things which weren't as exciting and probably not blogworthy out and about in Kings Cross and the city but New Year was obviously the main highlight of this week.
We were unsure of what exactly to do for the night itself. There was to be a big beach party out in Bondi with Groove Armada playing which had sold out months ago, pubs were throwing big parties and there were loads of different harbourside activities. We were quite keen
on seeing the firework show over the bridge but most of these harbourside sites get full by early afternoon and you are unable to bring your own alcohol. We realised we shouldn't waste our amazing flat terrace view though and decided to spend the night in the flat watching the displays from our balcony and then head to the pub after the bells.
We started drinking early-ish and we set chairs up on the balcony for the show and noticed virtually every other flat in the area were doing the same or having parties. Our building's fire alarm went off twice so the fire engine had to come, even though no one evacuated. The first firework display was at 9pm and was more for families with sleepy children. It was impressive and we got a lot on both camera and video camera.
It was nothing on what was to follow at midnight though. The party atmosphere continued on from 9 until 12 with the harbour bridge having an egg timer countdown. A lot of people were out and about on the street too and it was a pretty loud night. When the display arrived at midnight, we were
blown away! It went on for about 20 minutes and was easily the most impressive firework display we had ever seen and the view we had of it was second to none. Unlike at 9, the bridge itself lit up with thousands of fireworks and it didn't seem to stop.
The only downside of it was the new disc I had put it into the video camera. It was double sided and I had put it in especially for the bells, but it turns out it must have had a deep scratch as it wouldn't record on either side of the disc after the 2 minute mark. We didn't have any spares and the recorder stopped working literally seconds after the display started. Frustrating, but it meant I could sit back and enjoy it without having to try and record, so silver linings and all that. Check out the second page of the blog to see the fireworks.
Our going out plans were good intentioned but after the bells we were too drunk and lost our motivation to go out as we would have at least a 30 minute walk to one of the pubs in The Rocks
Bondi Beach
From open top bus...pretty busy to say the least. where we had planned to go. It wasn't a big deal as no doubt the prices would certainly not have been "rock" bottom...
At some point in the night we went to bed with eager anticipation of the hangover to come...
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